Of all the major spy stories to break open in the last thirty years, the case of John Boyce and Andrew Dalton Lee has to take the prize and the most troubling in its larger implications. Other spies like Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen were disillusioned middle aged bureucrats whose spying was an outlet for their frustration as well as a source of additional income. Boyce and Dalton, however, were young men who blundered into the spy game mostly because of boredom with their comfortable upper middle class upbringings. Their betrayal of the country that allowed them to live such an easy life is as baffling, if not as horrific, as the later actions of the shooters at Columbine High School.

Those who enjoyed the popular movie starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn based on this book will particularly enjoy the details that the movie had to leave out. Of the two, Boyce's story is the most tragic. He was highly intellegent with a potentially bright future, and secured a position at defense contractor TRW with a Top Secret security clearance because of his retired FBI agent father's connections. Lee, on the other hand, was a dropout and a drug dealer whose life was spiraling downward toward the inevitable bad conclusion. One of the astonishing facts revealed in the book is just how many second chances Lee squandered along the way. A child of less affluence would have ended up in prison long before he even had the chance to join Boyce in his spying.

Author/journalist Robert Lindsey is an excellent writer and he tells the story in such a way that it reads like a fiction thriller. Lindsey reports astonishing facts such as the incredibly lax security at TRW without editorial comment, letting the events speak for themselves. Lindsey's extensive interviews with all of the principals, including Boyce in particular, make for particularly compelling reading.

Overall, a well-written journalistic account of one of the most unfortunate of America's spy cases.

Robert Lindsey's "The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of friendship and Espionage" was a true story about Chris Boyce and Andrew Dalton and how they were selling secrets to the Soviets in the middle of the cold war. You see how simple this was, how they did it, and why they did it. I can't tell you much more with out giving something away. Once you pick it up you can't put it down.

At the southern tip of L.A. there's a bridge across the harbor. On one side it's beautiful, the other leads to Terminal Island, a federal prison. Boyce and Lee grew up on the beautiful side and ended up in the hell of a prison cell. Lindsey's book tells how. They did it, but to read of their journey downward is frightful when one considers the extreme differences the two sides of the bridge represent. And the book is much much better than the movie.

Buyer beware!! This audio contains only 4 or the original 13 stories contained in the Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Clearly it is an abridgement. !!

"The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes" was Doyle's last collection of short stories on the great detective. The stories may not have been uniformly as good as the earlier Holmes stories, and some of the plots may have been derivative, but they still entertain.

"The Three Garridebs" rehashed the plot of "The Red Headed League". "The Creeping Man" turned in a creepy tale whose premise has been disproved by later science. "The Veiled Lodger" was not even a mystery.

The rest of the stories were much better. "The Blanched Soldier" presented a conundrum which Holmes solved without visiting the scene. "The Sussex Vampire" had a perfectly natural explanation. "The Lion's Mane" involved violent death, but was there a crime? Holmes worked for an unnamed "Illustrious Client", but you should be able to figure out who it was. We meet Holmes' page, Billy, for the first and last time in "The Mazarin Stone". We meet international intrigue in "Shoscombe Old Place" and an arrogant murderer in "The Retired Colourman". My favorite story of the lot is "The Problem of Thor Bridge", where Holmes clears a young lady of murder in the face of almost overwhelming evidence of guilt.

Here we are again with the omniscient Holmes and incredulous Watson exploring mysteries as inscrutable as ever before. These stories are, as a previous reviewer has noted, on the darker side of things, no doubt as a resullt of WWI, in which Doyle lost his son. One even takes place, for the most part, in America, of all places!-There's always this comfortable, almost fairy tale sense in all of the Holmes' stories of this magic Victorian nightworld which Holmes and Watson float above in their upper middle class ease, and which we know (except in one story not in this book) that all will be well with the two friends in the end. Even when we know we are being duped, as when cigar ashes or some other peculiar evidence appears and Holmes announces "Surely you've read my monograph on the subject," and proceeds to expound upon their significance to the case, we are still pleased, like an opium smoker taking another drag from his pipe and drifting back to Xanadu. Like all Holmes' stories, these are bound to keep you turning the pages, as well as to enchant you thus.-Doyle's stories are so enchanting, in fact, that in the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books it is revealed that most Taiwanese believed that they were true and that London was a cobblestoned city perpetually inundated in fog!-A very nice compilation, indeed, with all the original drawings from The Strand.

Christopher Lee tells about his career in motion pictures, but of course the interesting parts are where he talks about playing Dracula and the problems he had with Hammer Studios. Having seen all of the Hammer Dracula movies it is easy for me to understand why Lee felt frustrated in the role. The character was reduced to being so animalistic; in some films he never even speaks. This autobiography makes it clear Lee could have done much more with the role (and actually got the chance to do so, but in a film made after this book was published). Certainly an interesting book for Lee's fans, but hopefully they will end up with more of an appreciation for the man's entire career in acting.

This was far from the conventional showbiz autobiography I was expecting. For one thing, it seems to have genuinely been written by its titular author--the style is genuinely intimate, raconteurial but not at all slick, and its genial, meandering style has the feel of an intelligent yet unpolished writer telling you his story, without a ghost or editor slicking it up. To me this memoir had a strong flavor of Evelyn Waugh--the bungled upbringing, half bohemian chaos, half cruel upper-class regimentation, that leaves the beautiful yet chilly man prepared for the role of his life: Count Dracula.

Written in a style that is easy to read and genuinely fun to follow, this autobiographical account of Christopher Lee's "life and times" is delightful. Mr. Lee's own account of his childhood, early adulthood, film career, and genuine love for his wife and daughter often brought me to tears, made me laugh, and inspired me. This was, clearly, someone who made the most of what was given to him in life.

After reading his autobiography, I can honestly say that this is a man worth knowing. He has had a phenomenal life, accomplished more than most, and appears to be a genuine "good guy" trying to make it through life, just like the rest of us! Hats off to you, Mr. Lee! You are superb.

The author provides those of us who are not LD with a view into his world and the perspective from which he approaches life and learning. As a teacher of students with learning disabilities, this book has helped me to approach my students in a different and... better way. I routinely recommend this book to other teachers and parents, so that understanding and acceptance can be cultured. I applaud the author for taking the bold step to share relevant information with those of us who work with individuals with learning disabilities.

As a former tutor who help a job essentially identical to Rosemary's, I read this book eagerly, for it allowed me to visit the world outside of the tutor's office. My students, like Lee, had many talents but often found college challenged their self esteem. This book provides a revealing look at what Lee experienced in all the disciplines, as well as in life in general.

One scene that will stay with me forever was when Lee had to write a check and felt paralyzed with fear when he realized he had to risk misspelling words -- simple words -- in front of the clerk.

I assigned this book in my graduate education class, for I felt it would provide future teachers with a detailed, sensitive, thoughtful account of students with learning disabilities. Many remarked that this book was the most influential book they had read, for they did not realize the abilities many students with L.D. have.

Some criticisms included the repetition; many felt the book needed to be edited further. We felt the strength lay in the anecdotes, the ones that were probably most difficult to share. But those rich stories are what make this book special, what make this book move beyond just another article about L.D.

Your future book may include other adults' experiences. We are all eager to read it.

I am the mother of a son with a severe reading disability. Tears welled up in my eyes when I read Christopher's reflections of his days in elementary school. I know my son was going through that too. I can not personally imagine being in any place day after day for 14 years, surrounded with things I could not understand nor cope with. I would be a very unhappy and probably unruly, due to anger, soul. That is how many years my son was in school by the time he graduated. He now attends Landmark College and has been inducted into Phi Theta Kappa. So much for being the dunce so many thought he was. By the way, I found myself on the pages about math. All though everyone assured me it was easy, I never did get it very well. I recommend this book to every parent and every educator involved with a Special Learner. You really can't cut off the tops of their heads to take a look inside, no matter how much you would like to. Read this book and you will see just what might be going on in there.

Although I basically agree with the other review of this book, I wanted to point out that the index could use some work. For example, I wanted to find a particular WML tag in the index and couldn't find it. Finally, I noticed that there was an index entry called "WML elements" and the tag I needed was *subindexed* under that.

I think that each tag needs to have a separate entry if the index is going to be seriously useful. In a reference book like this one, it's important.

A nice book, pretty thorough. Examples were consistent across sections, lots of images and code are helpful. Covers database access and ASP/Java through WAP. Probably the one to keep on the shelf if you are like me and are one of the few actually doing WAP development.

This is the ONLY book I've been able to find that covers all aspects of mobile development. That it covers HDML and voiceXML is quite nice. There are sections on migrating HDML to WML, and on designing mobile applications, also very helpful.

For my money, this is the WAP book to own. The cover certainly is goofy, though :-).

I have to admit, this book contains an impressive overview of all the Windows DNA technologies. As a reminder, DNA has been there for years and was working under NT4. It has been revamped with trumpets with a new name, .Net, with all those new services. The authors do have this in mind and they will tell you where .Net will be improving features.

I would recommend this book to anybody that wants to know what is Windows DNA/.Net (beside thinking it's everything that Microsoft is providing for developers!). Of course, you cannot have all those technologies into one book and expect the best coverage on all of them. Having that in mind, the authors create an incredible reference for developers that wants to upgrade to a more scalable & distributed environment as well as to take leverage of the new technologies that came with Windows 2000 (for developers that is).

The only thing that I have to mention (and I did to Wrox) was that I personnaly believe that this book, though the readers needs to have professional knowledge of development, would be better inside the Beginning series since this book serves as an overview reference of all those technologies. Wrox will undoubtfully then release multiple Professional books that will go further in those new technologies (such as doing COM+ events or asynchronous components, having XML Business Objects, etc.).

As a bottom line, most of the authors wrote in a confident programming style and it is a very interesting book to go through. ... But I can't wait for the .Net one!

This book comes in handy as a great reference for utilizing these technologies in the real world. If you're looking for a book that you can sit down and read cover to cover to understand the basics, this is not it. If you're an experienced developer who wants to dive into the guts of the technologies, then this is for you.

I recommend this book a chapter at a time (after reading the first 2 review chapters), in order to learn how to implement a technology (like MTS, MSMQ, etc) in the real world.

Windows DNA is an platform and methodology for Enterprise development. It is taking all of what Microsoft offers for industry : server software (SQL Server, Biztalk), development software (Visual Studio) and productivity software (Office, Viso) and making them tightly inter operatable to produce scaleable solutions that can be development very rapidly.

This book covers Microsoft DNA and does so very well. If you have been following the evolution of Microsoft's Enterprise development methodology and related technologies (MTS, COM, etc..) then you should flip though this one before buying to make sure it offers enough new information for your investment. Do this especially if you already have the Wrox title: Professional MTS/MSMQ and you have a good book on ASP or Visual Basic.

If however you are a beginner/intermediate level Visual Basic, ASP or VC++ developer and you want to expand you knowledge from how to build small-to mid-sized client-server or desktop applications to building scalable Enterprise solutions then this book is for you.

This trade paperback contains two stories: 'Hunting Ground,' which ran in issues 153 thru 155 of Dark Horse Presents, and 'Beneath the Surface,' which appeared in issues 8 and 9 of Angel. Both stories are by Chris Golden and Tom Sniegoski.

In 'Hunting Ground,' Cordelia finally gets a part in a film. Not just a bit part, but a starring role as one of a team of treasure hunters who are searching for the Helm of Haraxis. Deep in the woods things suddenly start to go wrong. Suddenly real life becomes too much like a horror film and Cordelia is desperate for Angel's aid.

'Beneath the Surface' finds Detective Kate Lockley in the middle of a series of killings that have all occurred close to underground accesses that Angel also uses. His investigations turn up a suspicious demon, but the case gets complicated when Kate decides to search the sewers herself. Worse, topping her list of suspects is the broody vampire himself.

Typical of Dark Horse Presents stories, which are originally done without color, the illustration for 'Hunting Ground' (done by Brian Horton and Paul Lee) is simplistic and two-dimensional. The coloring, which was added as an afterthought is also too flat. In contrast, Eric Powell's work on 'Beneath the Surface' is much more alive and the colors show much more modeling and shading. Even so, this is a case where both stories are much better than their graphic presentation.

Once again Jonathan Rigby demonstrates his place as one of England's premier experts on horror films. Hot on the heels of his excellent and recommended ENGLISH GOTHIC comes this new book, a complete listing of horror icon Christopher Lee's film and TV work, current up to 2001. The book even lists Lee's upcoming work in the new STAR WARS and LORD OF THE RINGS movies. Rigby is a talented writer and has made excellent use of rare primary and secondary materials, including a new interview with Lee and viewings of some of Lee's rarest work. Not only is the information updated and complete--Rigby has also unearthed many rare stills, behind the scenes shots, and even some personal photos. A lot of the illustrations are nothing short of breathtaking.

CHRISTOPHER LEE is an excellent book. It is not quite perfect, which is why I couldn't give it five stars. Perhaps by necessity, the book is "listy" and seems to pay as much attention to Lee's minor and/or uninteresting films as the major classics. Some of Rigby's evaluations I simply can't endorse, such as his wild overpraise of THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE, while elsewhere he disses one of my favorite Lee flicks, DRACULA AD 1972 (I still insist this film is vastly more entertaining than all the other Hammer-Lee Dracs except the first one--call me crazy, but a cult IS developing about this one!). And Rigby's attack on the ground-breaking work of Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu's IN SEARCH OF DRACULA (Rigby calls their landmark findings regarding the connection between Vlad the Impaler and Bram Stoker "hopelessly flimsy")betrays his membership in that revisionist cult of Dracula fans that has totally blown out of proportion certain needed correctives to M and F's work. C'mon, Jon, Stoker got the name and much of the details of Vlad's life right! There IS a legitimate connection between Vlad and Stoker's Count!.....

But these are very minor complaints, matters of opinion, really. The biggest problem--and it's not really that bad--is that since this is an authorized book, there are no negative critical comments directed at Lee or his performances. Obviously this is probably impossible in a work approved by the subject, but while Rigby often points out substandard work on Lee's resume, he never puts the blame on Lee for agreeing to work in such claptrap. By the same token, hindsight shows us that Lee goofed by turning down lucrative work in HALLOWEEN, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, and various popular US TV shows over the years. Of course Chris couldn't know that at the time--but when instead he did things like BEAR ISLAND and CARAVANS instead, one has to wonder what Lee was thinking! But I don't want to carp too much. 95% or more of Rigby's CHRISTOPHER LEE is excellent, thoughtful, lavishly illustrated stuff. It is certainly a must-read for all fans of the actor and horror films in general.

An intriguing, entertaining biography. Reeve's story is a very powerful one, and the author does an excellent job relating it. The book is well researched, giving detailed information about Reeve's childhood, acting career and his life-changing injury.Black and white photos enhance the book. Here's an easy "A", kids!

Higgins can write a suspenseful novel, especially when it involves World War II, but To Catch a King doesn't really measure up. Characters and plot are pretty simplistic, and there just isn't much going on in this book.

I have always liked Jack Higgins. This was another of his fast paced, easy to read stories. You can always count on him for a good story. I think this was the period of time when we used another name and was really pumping the books out. The one thing you have to keep in mind when reading his books is that they are meant to forget about your problems and just get into the story. He fills the books with a lot of good details and action but this is not Steinbeck.

Jack Higgins brings us a wonderful tale of action set in the inferno that was World War II Europe. After the fall of France, the Third Reich plots to capture the Duke of Windsor in Portugal. Higgins take on historical characters is always entertaing, particular Walter Schellenberg, the S.S. spymaster. 'To Catch A King' is a suspencful thriller that fans of WWII fiction will love, written in Higgins straight forward, easy-to-read style.